News and views about the Structural Eurocodes

14 November 2013

I am in Delft at the 44th meeting of TC 250, the main committee for the Structural Eurocodes. This is an important meeting, since it sets the ground rules for the forthcoming evolution of the Eurocodes.

Agreement has been reached on adopting CEN's drafting rules for the next generation Eurocodes (known as IR3), but with some variation. Paragraph numbers and the designation 'P' and 'AR' for Principle and Application Rule will be retained (although outside the standard template for a European Standard). Figures, tables, and equations will need to be renumbered 1, 2, 3, etc., not 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, etc. This change brought a lot of debate - some of TC 250's members seem to think they know best how to number these things - despite every other European and ISO standard working differently!

TC 250 also agreed to establish a Chairman's Advisary Panel on ease-of-use and reduction of Nationally Determined Parameters.